Fantasy In F Minor K 608 Woodwind Quintet

These two extraordinary works of late Mozart, KV 594 and KV 608, were both composed to fulfill a commission for a memorial exhibit in Vienna, tobe played in a “mechanical clock organ.” The term “fa ntasy” or “fantasia” came to be affixed to these workslater, and is more descriptive and less cumbersome than the term Mozart listed in his own catalogue, “Ein Stüke für ein Orgelwe rk in ein Uhr.” They are also variously titled “Adagio und Allegro in f für ein Orgelwerk” and “Allegro und Andante(Fantasie in f) für eine Orgelwaltze.”

The first of t hese, composed between the monumental String Quintet in D and the Piano Concerto in Bb KV 595, is an A-B-A form, comprised of an f minor Adagio opening and closing, with a contrapuntal Allegro at its heart. KV 608 ismore complicated, opening with an f minor section reminiscent of a Fren ch Overture, followed by a fugue in f minor, then an Andante ari